Canada and Sweden qualify for the World Women’s semifinals
Canada beat Denmark 9-8, while Sweden won 8-6 over the USA in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying matches for the BKT Tires & OK Tire World Women’s Curling Championship.
Sweden will now face defending champions Switzerland, who topped the round robin undefeated, in a semifinal.
Canada will face second-ranked Korea in the second semifinal, on Saturday night.
Canada v Denmark
In its match against Denmark, Canada took a 2-0 lead in the first end, but in the second Madeleine Dupont took third from Denmark and took a 3-2 lead.
The score is now 4-4 when the teams play the sixth final. In the end, Canada’s skipper Kerri Einarson played a close encounter on a Danish rock to score two points and take a 6-4 lead.
Denmark then equalized again in the seventh end, 6-6, with two points.
In the eighth, Canada’s Einarson played a hit-and-stay on a Danish rock to make three and take a lead of 9-6.
Denmark made one in the ninth end and then stole another in the tenth, but this was not enough, and Canada continued to book their place in the semifinals with a win of 9-8.
After this win, Canada’s Einarson said: “I’m really happy. We played really well and put some pressure on them. They played some great shots too and put some pressure on us from early on. We regrouped after the fifth finish and came back strong.”
She looked forward to her semi-final against Korea and said: “We will definitely make more shots against Korea tonight [than we did in the round-robin loss]. That is our plan. ”
USA against Sweden
In the second qualifying game, Sweden beat the United States first.
Then, in the second, the Swedish jumper Anna Hasselborg pulled into three American stones that were already sitting in the house and reached the button to open the point with one point.
In the fourth end, Sweden led 2-0 when the USA skipped Cory Christensen played a close encounter on a Swedish stone, to score two points and level the match to 2-2.
The Americans led 6-4 when the team played the tenth end. With her first stone, Swedish Hasselborg just managed to get around a guard with absolutely nothing to save before she removed an American stone on the button with an angle-raising socket.
Christensen could not match this, and Sweden scored four points from the end and won the match 8-6 without Hasselborg having to play their last stone.
When she came from the ice, Hasselborg talked about her match-winning shot in the tenth and explained: “I watched that shot pretty much the whole end. I was pretty sure where I wanted the broom, and what kind of weight I wanted. “We set up some good angles early in the end and forced them to throw that protection. The girls swept it really well, and I’m just glad we could go out with a win.”
Results from qualifying games: Canada 9-8 Denmark; USA 6-8 Sweden
Engage with the World Curling Federation during the BKT Tires & OK Tire World Women’s Curling Championship 2022 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and by searching hashtags #curling # WWCC2022